Glossary:
"Z"

(pl. zaddikim, Heb., righteous one).
A general term for a righteous person in Jewish
tradition. More specifically, the spiritual leader
of the modern Hasidim, popularly known as rebbe.

Zealots

The group of anti-Roman rebels of the 1st century C.E. Their movement
started in 6 C.E., but became really active during the period of
Jewish Revolt. Their most basic belief was that all means were justified
to attain political and religious liberty.

Zegota

A small, unique organization clandestinely
established in Nazi-occupied Poland for the purpose
of rescuing Jews. The director of Zegota was
Zofia Kossack, a devout Catholic and a prewar
novelist whose writings were not without anti-Semitic
overtones. Indeed, in a leaflet she published
in September 1942 titled "Protest," Kossack
wrote that the Jews were the enemies of the Polish
people but that Poles could not stand by and
watch the Jews murdered by the Germans. It is
estimated that 2,500 Jewish children were saved
as a result of Zegota's efforts. The children
were smuggled out of the ghettos and transferred
to Catholic orphanages and convents where they
pretended to be Christians. Zegota, which had
a branch in Krakow (headed by Stanislaw Dobrowolski),
also smuggled food into the Plaszow labor camp
and, later, into Oskar Schindler's factory in Brunnlitz,
Czechoslovakia.

(from Greek, to be enthusiastic). A general term for one who exhibits
great enthusiasm and dedication to a cause. Specifically, a member
of an early Jewish group or perspective that advocated Jewish independence
(see theocracy) from Rome.

Zedakah

See tzedakah.

Zentralstelle für Jüdische Auswanderung

"Central Office for Jewish Emigration"Set
up in Vienna on August 26, 1938, under Adolf
Eichmann.

Zigeuner

Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)

Zigeunerlager - Roma and Sinti (Gypsy) Camps

Municipal camps for the confinement of German
Roma and Sinti, established post-1935. Roma and Sinti who were stateless,
or held other nationalities, had already mostly been expelled from
German soil: "These gypsy camps were in
essence SS-Sonderlager:
special internment camps combining elements of protective custody,
concentration camps and embryonic ghettoes. Usually located on the
outskirts of cities, these Zigeunerlager were
guarded by the SS, the gendarmerie, or the uniformed
city police. After
1935 these camps became reserve depots for forced
labor, genealogical registration, and compulsory
sterilization. Between 1933 and 1939, Zigeunerlager were
created in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen,
Frankfurt, Hamburg, and other German cities. These camps evolved
from municipal internment camps into assembly centres for systematic
deportation to concentration camps after 1939." [Source: "Holocaust:
The Gypsies." Sybil Milton. In S Totten,
W S Parsons, I W Charny (eds.) Century of Genocide. Eyewitness Accounts and
Critical Reviews. New York: Garland, 1997]

Zion, Zionism

(Mount) Zion is an ancient Hebrew designation for Jerusalem, but
already in biblical times it began to symbolize the national homeland
(see e.g., Psalm 137.1-6). In this latter sense it served as a focus
for Jewish national-religious hopes of renewal over the centuries.
Ancient hopes and attachments to Zion gave rise to Zionist longings
and movements since antiquity, culminating in the modern national
liberation movement of that name. The Zionist cause helped the Jews
return to Palestine in this century and found the state of Israel
in 1948. The goal of Zionism is the political and spiritual renewal
of the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland. See also Herzl.

Zion Mule Corps

Vladimir Jabotinsky proposed that a Jewish legion be formed to
join the British in liberating Palestine from the Turks during World
War I, but the British resisted the idea of Jewish volunteers fighting
on the Palestinian front. Instead, they suggested the Jews serve
as a detachment for mule transport at another location along the
Turkish front. Joseph Trumpeldor subsequently formed the 650-strong
Zion Mule Corps, of whom 562 were sent to the Galipoli front.

Zizit (tzitzit)

(Heb., fringes). See tallit.

Zmirot

Sabbath songs.

Zog Nit Keyn Mol

Zog nit keyn mol, az du geyst dem letsten veg
("Never say that
you are on the final road"), the so-called Partisan
Song, written by Hirsh Glick. In April 1943 when
news of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising reached the
Vilna ghetto, Hirsh Glick wrote this defiant
anthem. It has become the universal Hymn of the
Holocaust Survivors.

Zohar

Book of Splendor; the chief literary
work of the kabalists. The author of the main
part of the Zohar was Moses de Leon (12th century)
in Spain, but it is pseudepigraphically ascribed
to the Palestinian tanna Simeon bar Yohai (2nd
century CE), sometimes called RaShBaY (Rabbi
Shimeon bar Yohai).

Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb

(b. 1944) Bible lecturer, teacher and author; Israel.

Zoroastrianism

The ancient pre-Islamic Persian religion.

Zot Haaretz (This Is the Land)

The journal of the Land of Israel Movement.

Zyklon B

The commercial name for hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas used
in the Euthanasia Program and at Auschwitz. The poison was produced
by the firm DEGESCH, which was controlled by I. G. Farben. Zyklon
B was delivered to the camps in the form of pellets in air-tight
containers. When the pellets were exposed to the air they turned
into a deadly gas that would asphyxiate victims within minutes.